Gender-specific phonetic variability: hormonal influences and occupational environment

该项目的总目标是促进对可归因于生物和社会因素的不同性别的语言差异的理解。生物学方面考虑荷尔蒙影响(A)，社会因素是职业环境(B)。该项目的研究结果将有助于我们理解“性别”这个构念在当今社会的语音和语言实现。该项目采用跨学科的方法，结合了语音学、语言学、社会学、心理学、医学和性别研究。项目的A部分旨在调查语言和激素之间的关系。在生产方面，研究了某些激素（雌激素、孕酮、皮质醇、睾酮）对性别声学-语音变异的影响。此外，还考虑了家庭地位和择偶兴趣等潜在的相互作用因素。在感知方面，我们将研究上述因素是否也会影响说话者对吸引力/男性气质/女性气质的感知，以及听者对性别语音差异的敏感性。第二部分分析了语音性别典型性与职业环境的潜在关系。特别地，性别（非）典型职业（木匠，幼儿园教师）对性别特异性语音变异的影响进行了调查。除了分析生产中的性别/说话者/职业差异外，还研究了对听众对性别和职业差异的看法及其期望和刻板印象的影响。将为项目的每个部分创建一个语音数据库，其中包含朗读和自发语音的录音以及说话者的相关元数据（性别、性别认同、年龄、职业、家庭状况、激素水平等）。这两个部分的声学分析包括男性和女性之间显著的语音差异（基本频率，共振，音节，音质）。

The overall aim of the project is to promote the understanding of gender-specific linguistic variability that can be attributed to both biological and social factors. The biological aspect considers hormonal influences (A), the social factor is the occupational environment (B). Results of the project will help us to understand the phonetic and linguistic implementation of the construct "gender" in today’s society. The project takes an indisciplinary approach, combining phonetics, linguistics, sociology, psychology, medicine and gender studies.Part A of the project aims to investigate the relationship between speech and hormones. On the production side, the influence of certain hormones (estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, testosteron) on gender-specific acoustic-phonetic variability is examined. In addition, the potential interacting factors family status and mating interest are considered. On the perception side we will examine whether the factors named also affect a speaker’s perceived attractivity/masculinity/femininity and a listener’s sensitivity regarding gender-specific phonetic variability.Part B analyses the potential relationship between phonetic gender typicality and occupational environment. In particular, the influence of gender(un)typical occupations (carpenter, kindergarten teacher) on gender-specific acoustic-phonetic variability is investigated. Besides an analysis of gender-/speaker-/occupation-specific variation in production, the impact on listeners’ perceptions and their expectations and stereotypes regarding gender- and occupation-specific variability is examined.A speech data base for each part of the project will be created containing acoustic recordings of read and spontaneous speech together with relevant metadata of the speakers (gender, gender identity, age, occupation, family status, hormon levels, etc.). Acoustic analyses for both parts comprise the salient phonetic differences between males and females (fundamental frequency, formants, sibilants, voice quality).